Calvin and the Christmas tree

Its Friday evening and here I am with another one of my absolute favorites...Calvin's dad's sense of humor at its best.

Published 1989 Dec 4th...

At their best

Looks like the new arrivals to the container garden that are the rose plants are loving this rainy season.A single day's haul pictured below and I am actually wondering if I could make a bouquet and put them in the vase. The only problem is the plants are still very small and dont have that long stalks to stick out of the vase. Sooner or later I will try making one and see how that goes..

Pretty aren't they...

Supermoon 2017

It was raining continuously all through the week but somehow the clouds cleared on Sunday giving us a glorious view of the Super moon.

With the Karthigai Deepam lights sparkling everywhere and the moon glowing in the sky, it all made for a wonderful experience yesterday. I was able to take a few pictures of the moon with my mobile phone and all turned out to be a little hazy.This is the best of the bunch, nowhere compared to what I clicked last year. Well, something is better than nothing, right..

Visiting the native town pt 1

During my childhood days visiting my grandparents house for the Summer holidays had always been a regular fixture. Later on as we moved to the higher standard classes we could not visit the place often and the visiting gap slowly grew to months, a year and then many years.Very recently when I learnt my parents and my siblings were planning a trip to the native town to attend a function I felt I had to join. After-all this kind of journeying together as a family has become a once in a blue moon occasion these days and I do not want to miss one such opportunity.

We met many of our folks and relatives(whom I could not remember very well) and spent a day well chattering and pondering around. But the main highlight of the journey for me came the day after when my brother suggested we visit the vaaikaal(canal) nearby. When we were kids we had spent many a happy days and hours playing and bathing in the canal river. The canal was atleast a kilometer from my grandparents house and we used to walk the entire distance to reach the canal. Most often we would be accompanied by our grandfather and my parents will also be with us. All those memories came flushing in my mind at the mere mention of the canal and I never imagined I would have a chance again to go visit the river canal after all these years.

Later on I suspected the plan to visit the canal might get dropped so I borrowed a two wheeler from my uncle and with my sister accompanying me set out to see the canal.I did not go to the exact place where we used to jump in but knew the river is easily accessible at place called Moolavaaikal(nearby the NH) and drove to that area.I had heard the curve where the river flows at moolavaaikal is a beauty to look at but never imagined it would be this beautiful and scenic.

When we were there a couple of kids were fishing with a hook but could see they did not have any luck till then. We used to try fishing too when we were kids and sometimes we were successful too at catching some small fishes.The river still has many fishes teeming nearby the banks just like the olden days.

I was pining to get my legs drenched but we didn't as we weren't sure of the current of the river flow.Well I am happy at least I was able to see the river without any prior planning and surely hope another opportunity will arise in the future to visit the good old place and jump in.

So close ..

I wanted to do a quick post and when I was thinking about it realized I had not shared even a single Calvin post this year at all. My love for Calvin and Hobbes knows no bounds and I love especially the strips that detail Christmas time at the Calvin household.Fortunately I have all of the Calvin comic strips that ever got published (Calvin ran from 1985 till 1995) so it is easy to read a few whenever I wish. I am planning to post one Calvin strip each Friday all through December.

Today I pick year 1988 and the strip published on December 1st (29 years ago on the same day) ...Enjoy.

Oh poor Calvin..! 

So whats been happening in the garden...

We had a major hiccup in our gardening prospects this year. We renovated our property and painted the house in Summer but in the process lost many of the container plants and few others in the ground garden. Our garden is an organic one and we have absolutely not used any chemicals in the past three years. We guess the odour from the new paint did not go well with the plants and also suspect the workers did throw some of the washed paint water nearby the plants,we know not for sure but there were a lot of casualty this year.

We had around 15-20 rose plants but only around four survived,that too, only after many valiant efforts. For the past few months we have been picking out the dried plants and trying to nourish the soil again and re-start everything. We have bought new rose plants,around ten I guess and they are slowly settling in. We lost all our mint (both in the ground and the containers) and just recently I have planted a few stalks in a grow bag.

October is a good month to start growing methi/fenugreek and we just harvested our first batch. We had plenty of methi in just one harvest actually.

The lone chilli plant that survived is giving few chillies then and now.

The flat runner beans are only now coming up.We normally do it on Aadi amavasai day that comes in late July/early August but the seeds that we sowed on that day were all lost in our renovation activities. These three plants are the result of our fifth attempt to grow them and fingers crossed they start flowering by Jan at the least.

The rose plants that were newly planted are thriving thanks to the recent bout of rains.The jasmines are still blooming even though the summer is long over.

The part of the ground garden where we grow our snakeguard plants are ruined given the fact not one of twenty seeds that were planted over there in these three months took life. My very last attempt did work and now there is a tiny single lone sapling of snakeguard climbing up and we have procured a marigold plant to help in curing the soil off the paint chemicals. It is like almost starting over all again but we are enjoying the process nevertheless.

Salt dough ornaments again!

A year back around this time we made our first salt dough Santa. I half expected for the ornament to loose its color and vigor after a month or get damaged soon..I am surprised to say that the Santa has stayed in the same color and shape even almost a year after. We struck a magnet behind the Santa and he is currently adorning the cupboard door. 

Making the salt dough ornament was such a fun and happy activity, we decided to do it again sometime and did a batch of ornaments over the Summer holidays when my niece had her cousins visiting her. We followed the same method and let our imagination take flight and made many different toys..

A cute duck..my nephews drawing

A constellation set

Fruits

All were colored,dried and then stuck with a magnet behind and went straight to the cupboard door. 

Its been six months and am happy to say they are staying very pristine still.I can't stress enough how much fun we had while making these ornaments and they sure make a wow statement as a display piece. We made a few more different items other than the magnets but this post is long enough already :) ..I will show them in another post soon. Till then ..ciao.